Karkat's clues
by xEmistuckx
Summary: Karkat visits John's for the day to help look over the grubs. When Sollux manages to get himself trapped in a game of blue's clues, the only way to get out is to find the three clues and think! Pale Johnkat, possible red. This was probably the best and worst idea I've ever had
1. Chapter 1

**I am so proud of that title**

* * *

Oh joy. On this rainy May day John invited you over to watch over the grubs. And not just any grubs. These particular grubs happen to be your best friends. You're not entirely sure how they even became grubs (and no not THAT WAY) but it's probably some more time bullshit. It always is.

Jade was going to drive you to John's house but she had her girl's day out with Rose and that was way more important than using five minutes that might have delayed your finger nail-polish drying time to make sure a grumpy troll boy didn't get soaked by weird cold earth rain. But whatever, dragging your sneakers through puddles was much more fun that whatever transport Jade could have supplied.

And that was being sarcastic of course.

Turning off the main road, you pass several identical white houses. Ugh, they were hideous. Each lawn had a strip of nuclear green grass, a decade old lusus car, and a mailbox was a stupid red flag sticking up. What was that flag even for? To show your neighbors that you care so much about preserving 'the traditional communication system' that you still send crappy Walgreen wriggling-day cards in the mail? You bet they aren't even for anyone; you just want to feel important. Or look like you actually pay your bills.

Ignoring the infuriating shit flags, you walk up John's driveway and throw open the door. Feferi, ur, grub Feferi latches onto your pant leg. Nepeta grub follows up behind her. A familiar giggle pops up behind the door.

"Hi Karkat! Hey, why are you all wet?"

"Gee John, I don't know. It's not like the rain outside has anything to do with it." You groan. Peeling off your raincoat, you collapse on the couch. Sollux grub hisses at you. Lifting your arm, he retrieves the wii remote.

"I know, I'm just messing with you. If you want I can pull Furfri off your leg."

"It's Feferi and I'm fine with her clawing into my skin."

"If you say so." John shrugs and sits next to you. He's wearing ghostbuster pajamas and is absolutely covered in slime pie. His fingertips have white makeup stuck to them.

"Wow Egbert, were you showering yourself with multiple Gamzee's or what?" You point to the gelatin on John's socks. His blue eyes widen.

"I don't like that kid." He whispers to himself. You start to say something, but a honk in what seems to coming from the kitchen scares the living shit out of you. Tavros grub giggles as you screech and cling onto John.

"Whoa, no homo Karkat."

"Not the time." You talk through clenched teeth. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

"Heh….how about we have dinner now…you're hungry, aren't your Karkat?"

"Ravenous." You let go of John and shake the look of fear off your face. Gamzee's just a grub anyway. It's not like he—

YEOWCH!

HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THAT COMING?

Attached to your ankle is Gamzee, teeth deep in your flesh. You wince, bending down to pry him off. No dice. Blood trickles onto your shoes.

"Nyah!" Tavros grub crawls across the living room, jumping onto Gamzee. With a bit of perseverance, Gamzee finally leaves your ankle to bleed out. Huh. If only big Tavros was this helpful.

Shaking it off, you still down next to several high chairs in the dining room. Nepeta, Vriska, and Aradia are all eating earth Cheerios, dipped in applesauce. You guess John didn't know much about Grubs because they usually eat meat, not squishy apple soup. Well, except for Equius. If he wasn't drinking milk across the table, he'd be halfway through a stick of celery by now. You swear, these grubs are creepier than the 6 sweep olds.

"Okiee-dokee Karkat, I have your mac n cheese!" John pulls a porcelain bowl out of the microwave. Inside are noodles, soaked in processed cheese and drenched in warm milk. You poke at it with your fork.

"Ew." You mutter, observing the macaroni. It shakes like the gelatinous mound it is, spraying cheese onto the table. You plug your nose.

"Bacon-bits?" John slides a container across the wooden table. You reach across a bowl of potato chips, snatching the bits before they hit a sleeping Eridan. Because, you know, it's completely normal to fall asleep on a table. Holding the bacon bits up to your face, you read the overly neon label. Apparently these bacon bits aren't even real bacon, they're fake factory squares. Great, you're whole meal is one big chemical. You're better off eating the applesauce.

"Uh, John?'

"Yea?" John sits next to Equius, shoveling in spoonfuls of macaroni. It's a wonder his gag reflex hasn't come into effect yet.

"What am I eating?" You flip over the bright blue bowl, even shaking it. No macaroni falls out.

"Ok, so maybe I'm not the BEST cook." John smiles that dorky smile of his. Vriska coos.

"I wasn't that hungry anyway. Next time I'll try not to burn the house down and make cluckbeast nuggets." You push your food towards Nepeta, who digs in. Are you the only one with working tastebuds?

Getting up from the table, you join Sollux grub back in the living room. Silently, you unplug the wii, plugging in the ancient VCR player. You turn to look at John's collection of movies. Con Air, National Treasure, Lord of War, Blues Clues, Face/Off….

Wait. What.

What is _that_?

On the cover of the movie you're holding, an overly tall pale man holding a blue dog smiles at you. His hair is disheveled and that smug look on his face makes you want to rip that hair out of his head and sell it for an unfair price on ebay. Ugh, and look at those poorly animated table decorations. How did the salt and pepper have a kid anyway? Talk about lying to your kids through media.

For some reason the dog's name is Blue because apparently the color of its undetailed fur isn't noticeable enough that it has to be mentioned every time the dog is acknowledged. You bet the other dog's name is pink. Is the human's name Peach? What's next, people start calling you Grey?

"K-Kk?" A surprised sob from Sollux reminds you he was in the middle of Super Mario Bros. You jump up, looking for something to stop the inevitable.

"Look Sollux! It's a computer mouse! You love those don't y—"

"WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Sollux bursts into tears. He flails overdramatically on the couch.

"Suh?" Feferi Grub crawls out of a cardboard box under the tv. You bite your lip. She looks at the terror in your face, giggling.

"Don't you dare."

"O JJJJJJOOOOONNNNN!" Feferi screeches. Sollux cries even louder. You cover your ears, hugging the movie to your chest. John and a few grubs rush to Sollux. Feferi nips at your toes.

"You seriously couldn't watch the grubs for five minutes while I was eating?" John frowns, rocking Sollux back and forth in his arms.

"Me? You could at least make a decent meal so I wouldn't have to wander off!"

"Don't blame this on me Karkat. Sollux wouldn't be crying if you could've just let him play Mario."

"Why the fuck would I watch a wriggler play Mario?" You huff, kicking Blue's clues away.

"Language!" John wraps his hands around Sollux's head. You sigh.

"How about we just watch a movie?" You point to the creepy pale man, named Steve. Terezi grub licks the plastic, giving a stubby leg's up. Which is a thumbs up. For grubs.

Yeah.

"Blue's clues? Aren't we a little old for this?" John reads the back cover, frowning. You steal it out of his hands, putting it in the CD slot.

"Not for us, for the grubs." You grumble. It's a total lie, you just wanna see if they find the clues, but there's no reason why John should know that. You gather up the rest of the grubs, placing them on the carpet. Nepeta curls up to Equius, who situates himself next to Aradia. Next to them sit Sollux, Feferi, Eridan, etc. You haven't found Gamzee, but he's probably keeping himself busy ripping off the heads of Barbies upstairs so you're fine. John replaces the old batteries in the tv remote, giving you time to grab a bag of cheesy doodle things and handle them out to the grubs.

"Chuah?" Eridan opens one eye, flicking his tail. He reaches out for the doodle, smiling. It's the first time you've seen him smile. Feferi glubs next to him, hugging the purple grub.

"Awwwww! Hey Karkat, do they usually do this? I've never seen them this close before." John crouches next to you, the glimmer of light coming from the tv shining off his glasses. His stupid buck teeth adorn his grin.

"No! I mean, not really, but, they're just tired." You stuff a doodle into your mouth. This is not supposed to be a cutesy 'omg look at Karkat he's so caring' moment. You blush.

"Well" John turns back to the tv, "I think you're tired a lot then."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You said Eridan and Feferi were cute because they were tired. And since you're so cute a lot of the time, you must be tired." John shrugs. You're not entirely sure if this is some kind of flirtation, but to trolls being cute is an insult. No one goes up to someone trying to survive in Sgrub by killing thousands of imps and calls them "cute".

But then again John isn't the most sensible guy.

"I'm not cute."

"Sure you are! Not many big, grown up muscular trolls watch Blue's clues." John presses play. Sitting on the sofa, John leans on your shoulder. He has no idea what the boundaries between platonic and Nepeta's shipping dreams relationships are. You can already feel Nepeta mentally putting you in a moirail category.

"Uh huh. Sure." As the theme song fills the room with oddly familiar music, a bright light sparks. The whole living room goes white for a second, taking your vision along with it.

When the light dies down, the trolls are temporally paralyzed. Guess it must be some kind of natural reaction. John pokes your shoulder. Your line of sight changes from the grubs to the appearifier in the center of the floor. Sollux walks toward it.

"Sallux no!" John jumps forward.

"It's Sollux—Augh!" Both you and John disappear, along with Sollux grub. Behind you, the grubs starts pushing things onto the metal, trapping their grubsitters.

When you reappear, Sollux is nowhere to be seen. As for John, he's laid out on the floor, clutching his arm, moaning something about how you're not supposed to jump face first onto to a cold tile floor. Is it even tile? You kick the floor. It feels more like a pink carpet but when you land on your face you guess it doesn't matter what the floors made of.

Around you, the walls, the floor, even the huge chair behind you is some shade of red. So is John, but that's more due to his nose bleed. A few feet over, though far enough to not be on screen is the kitchen. To go with the primary color theme, it's a bright yellow. Sitting on one of the stools at the island counter is Steve himself.


	2. Chapter 2- The first clue

"Steve?" John pushes himself up off the floor. He wipes the blood off his face with his sleeve. Looking down at his outfit, he only sighs. Who thought wearing ghostbusters pajamas would backfire? (Everyone. There were absolutely hideous)

"Hello there! My name's Steve." Steve holds out his hand. You don't shake it.

"Hello." You grumble.

"RooRoo?" Blue runs up to you. John laughs.

"Hi Blue! Hey, have you seen Sollux grub?" John talks to him like he talks to a human. What does he think he's doing? Of course the dumb dog isn't going to—

"Roo!" Blue walks away from John, jumping and leaving a blue pawprint on a clear screen on the opposite wall. Steve and John gasp.

Oh no. Now you remember why the theme song sounded so familiar. Crabdad used to put troll blue's clues on for you when you were a grub. Since Blue just decided she's going to play the game, this means that they are now going to…. sing.

Why. Why you.

"You wanna play Blue's clues?" Steve asks. John jumps up.

"We do! We do!"

"Well, I'll need your help to find Sollux. Will you help me?" Steve talks to the clear wall. John doesn't seem to notice Steve practically talking to himself, him being too busy jumping up and down like a kid hopped up on sugar.

"You will? Great!" Steve points to the pink living room, running back to the 'thinking chair'. Music starts blaring from somewhere in the ceiling. Looking as pissed-off as possible, you slouch in the corner. John starts dancing in the other corner on screen.

"We gotta find a pawprint, that's the first clue! We put it in our notebook and now what we do?" _Throw ourselves off Niagara Falls that's what we do. _You think. Your face is as red as it gets, half because of embarrassment and half because of when John dances he wiggles his ass so stupidly it hurts.

"We put it in our notebook cause it's Blue's clues!"

"Blue's clues!" John and Blue cheer. You can't watch this anymore. Where's the Alternian sun when you need it?

"We gotta find another pawprint, that's the second clue. We put it in our notebook, now what do we do?" Random household objects start to gather on the carpet. Oh look, it's the salt and pepper shakers from the cd cover. And their two stupid kids too. Hold on, there are TWO of them? What have these condiments been up to? "Blue's clues! Blue's clues!"

"We've gotta find another pawprint, that's the third clue. We put it in our notebook, well, you know what to do!" No, no you don't. And you don't ever want to know. You'd rather suffocate yourself with a line of paper dolls, losing conscious with your last sight being a group of living kitchen utensils singing and your last breath to be poisoned with the scent of crayons and Playdoh.

"We sit down in our thinking chair and think!"

"Think!" John points to you. You groan.

"John, I am not singing this trash in front of millions of drooling children, let alone _you._" You sneer.

"Think!" John continues without you, stepping over your legs. Blue looks at you out of the corner of her eye.

"We can use our minds take one step at a time, we can do anything—"

"RooRoo!" Steve, Blue and John all turn towards you, arms outstretched. Burying your head in your hands, you sigh.

"That we want to do." You mutter. Steve wiggles around in some kind of wriggler dance before finally letting the music fade. You unplug your ears.

"Okay, well, first, we have to get my handy dandy notebook!" Steve points to a short red table. "Sidetable has it in her drawers."

"Pff, drawers." John laughs into his hand, spitting all over the place.

"Hey John, I'll get the notebook, and you and Karkat start looking for clues. Remember, when we find a clue, we say—"

"Fuck you for not telling us where the hell Sollux is." You growl. John gasps, shaking his head.

"Close!" Steve beams.

"Close? How was that close? I made an exact point to get as far away as the actu—mumffp!" Steve bumps you out of the way with his arms, knocking you off your feet. Blue giggles, if that's what dogs can do. John shakes his head.

"You shout out 'clue'! Understand?" Steve nods, leaving you and John to stand idly in the center of the living room. You pull John to the side.

"John, we can escape right now. We can split up, find Sollux, and jump right on the appearifier. We'll never have to see that stupid green shirt sopor-for-brains again."

"No way! This seems really fun! Plus, if we're really lucky, we can be on tv!"

"We're already on tv. Besides, even if we weren't, would you really want to be seen on national television in _ghostbuster pajamas._" You point to John's shirt. It even has his stupid symbol on the shirt pocket.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Still, it's just half an hour, then we can go home. What are you in such a big hurry for anyway? It didn't look like you were having fun with the grubs." John's eyes widen. "Wait, were you?"

"No! Can't a troll just not have to be surrounded by…" You wave your arms, "all this?"

"Hey John and Karkat! Let's go look for the first clue!" Steve waves you over, holding a miniature thinking chair in his hand. Upon closer look, you realize it's actually a notebook, with a huge green crayon stuck to it. Inside are hundreds upon hundreds of used pages from previous games. You flip through the pages, a vague idea of where large objects are located in front of you as you walk into the kitchen. Looking up, a familiar family of table spices greets you.

"Well, isn't it the pervs." You lean one elbow on the counter, face scrunched in disgust.

"Why yes, this is Paprika!" Mr. Salt smiles, standing closer to Paprika. You squint.

"No, I said pervs."

"Paprika, can you say hi to Karkat?"

"Hi!" Paprika grins. You raise your eyebrows.

"Hey Karkat, you think, because we're on a kids show, all our curses will be ignored?" John leans over your shoulder.

"Let's see." You stand up straight, looking up at the ceiling. "Steve, you are a fucktard fuckhead with your head shoved halfway up your shitty ass."

"Thanks!" Steve sounds sincere, much to your liking. John taps your arm.

"You know, hehe, Karkat, I heard that you are an asswipe that can go fuck yourself." John holds back a grin, biting his lip.

"Wow Karkat, that is such a special thing you can do! I wish I could be as talented as you." rocks a spice jar baby thing in her arms, and, you cannot make this up, starts tearing up.

"Oh sweetie, you are just as talented as Karkat! Maybe his talent will help him find a clue!" Mr. Salt hops out of the way, revealing a pawprint on a glass of water. You look at Steve. He's completely distracted doing nothing. You reach out and grab the water, tempted to drink it. Teeth grazing the glass, Steve shakes his head in bewilderment.

"A clue? Where?" Steve asks the wall. He spins around, pointing at the glass in your hand. John stops his continuous cursing to stare at you.

"There! There's the clue!" John grabs the glass out of your hand.

"Hey, that's my water!" You frown.

"You know what these means? We put it in our handy –dandy notebook!" Steve pulls the notebook out of his pocket. He flips to a clean page and holds up his green crayon. "A glass of water." From your point of view, you can't see a single thing he's doing. John's in your same position.

"You think he drew the water?" John mouths from across the table.

"No, he drew me holding an empty glass and breaking over your head. Of course he drew the glass!" You hiss, trying to stay as quiet as possible. John laughs.

"Well, where ever Sollux is, it has to do with water." Steve snaps the notebook shut, turning back to you and John. "Let's go look for more clues in the garden!"

You follow Steve through the Kitchen door and into the backyard. It's a pretty chilly morning, and the dew on the grass sticks to the bottom of your pants. There's flowers scattered around the area as well. It's your average backyard, it even has a sandbox.

"Hi Steve!" In the sandbox, a little red….oh my god what is that.

"Hi Shovel! Hi Pail!" Steve bends down next to the….okay, is he seriously not noticing this? That is a bucket! There is pornographic material on a tv show! What kind of horrifying children's media is this? You can't believe it. To think, adults spend their own time ANIMATING this? Not even _trying _to blur it out! What's next, Horuss's horse dick being given to Steve for winning the game?

This suddenly got a lot more mentally scarring.


End file.
